


A Storm Gathers Strong (Blackened Fire Waits To Consume)

by callmedok



Series: Brütal Legend Zine Submissions [2]
Category: Brütal Legend
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Cliffhangers, Demons Are Assholes, Eventual Romance, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, The Princess Bride References, Vampires, Werewolves, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-06 23:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17354966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: Eddie Riggs' boyfriend has been missing for two weeks, and the first time he steps into the Bus since that failed meet-up he runs into a vampire with the same problem. Hell, even his friend Mangus the bartender shares it too.Some heads are going to roll if they aren't found in one piece.One of two submissions for the Brütal Legend Zine, 2018.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theme for the Brütal Legend Zine was cross-faction friendship, and this one was actually written while I was on the road last July!  
> Urban fantasy was one of the first genres I fell in love with, so this is a tip of the hat to the Dresden Files, the Nightside series, and some others of their kind. This is the first time I used Paige as Ophelia's last name, as well as Robin Eld for the Fire Baron.
> 
> This is the full unedited version, as some things needed to be cut for length in the zine version.
> 
> Title come from Black Fire Upon Us by Dethklok.

Friday nights at The Bus tended to be Eddie’s favorite time of the week, when the moon wasn’t trying to dick him over hard-core and he could actually swing a visit. Decent cover bands, good beer on tap, and if he sat at the bar early enough no one would fuck with him. Perks of the bar being neutral territory, and knowing the wizard in charge. Everyone knew you didn’t fuck with Mangus’ place, because you’d be put in the ground _quick_ by some of the thick-necked half orcs who’d kinda adopted the place as their chill zone.

So after a long day, where the closeness of the moon is getting under his skin, making him all twitchy, he heads on over. Manages a half-hearted finger-gun at one of the half-orc guys who yells “Eddie!” when he walks in, cause the guy is usually great to talk about thrash metal with, but his brain is just _fried_ right now. He wants a nice mug of something cold, something loud on stage to drown out the feedback in his head, not think or talk to anyone at all.

Try to forget the string of unanswered texts on his phone, and the fact Lita was giving him death glares more often than not the last two weeks whenever she stopped by the record shop.

When he gets to the bar though, he has to resist the urge to growl. There’s the sticky sweet stench of death wafting over from the Goth looking gal in his usual spot, and any other day he could handle a bloodsucker. Grin and bear it, cause y’don’t start shit at The Bus unless you want to be banned and he would never risk that. But tonight, tonight of all times…he just wants to talk to someone who’s already in the know on this shit. Not deal with a fucking _tick._

He huffs as he ends up in the seat next to her, pointedly ignoring her entire existence as he catches Mangus’ attention with a quick whistle followed by a playful salute. It earns a delighted grin, and he pulls in one of Baron’s guys to take his place as bartender as he wanders over to their end wiping his hands off on a spare cloth. “Hey, Eddie! Where’ve you been, man? Feels like it’s been ages.”

“Aw, y’know.” Eddie begins, making a dismissive gesture trying to act cool. “Oz is fine, work’s fine, though Lita… pretty sure if we ran together this weekend, she’d get, y’know, _bitey._ ” He snaps his teeth jokingly, raising a hand to mime a scratch, and the gal next to him snorts. When he turns to look at her, quirking an eyebrow in question, she has her hand in front of her mouth, and the makeup under her eyes looks… drippy, gloopy even, like she got in a fight with one of mermaids down at the docks.

To be honest, with the way her hair is hanging and the whole entire vibe she gives off, she could be waterlogged with filled lungs and he’d never even know it. Vamps did some weird shit, once it finally sunk in that they were dead.

“Thought fleabags didn’t like fighting each other,” She says, and that nearly gets him to snap because _None of your fucking business, lady._ He ain’t the one guzzling blood by the ounce, or sleeping upside down or hiding in crypts. He just wants to angst in peace, damnit, not have this bloodsucker make fun of him.

“Oh, fuck off, you tick _._ It’s my boyfriend’s sister, she thinks I know why he’s gone.” He replies a bit bitterly, reminded of how Lita called him up outta the blue. Demanded to know where he was last night, if he saw Lars, the pure anger of ‘ _Where’s my brother then, Eddie?’_ even as his heart cracked. Knowing in that moment the last time he’d seen him was a day or two before on a lunch break, where Lars popped in to show him some lyrics he’d been working on. Looking so proud, so excited as he showed him the new work for Ironheade. He’d kissed him on the forehead, after tucking some of that beautiful blond hair behind his ear, and said they should go to The Bus together on Friday.

Lars never showed up that night, and here they were two weeks later.

“My name’s Ophelia, not tick, you dog,” She snaps almost instantly, but then the rest seems to sink in and… something about her face changes, then. The brief glint of anger in her eye fizzles out, the corners of her mouth lose that cutting edge, and she looks more like she’s wearing a mask rather than being genuine in her insults. Maybe something like regret or tiredness enters her eyes.

“Ophelia Paige,” She adds softly, before tacking on a mutter of “Well, damn. Guess we’re in the same boat then.” She smooths her hair down on one side as she looks back to the bar, to the drink in front of her, anywhere but Eddie, and he feels… well, he feels like Kill Master would be pinching his ear right now, for one, and reading him the riot act. Under all the bad-ass doctoring, the older wolf had a _thing_ about being cuttingly polite when it came to vamps. He also hated to see a lady close to tears, but he had that British show-no-weakness thing going for him.

Eddie doesn’t have that thing, even if the older wolf has been in his life since Day One alongside his dad.

“I…fuck, okay. What’s his name then, what’s he like?” Eddie ends up asking, fumbling over his words as his stomach twists in knots. Lars wasn’t the only one missing, _shit_. It happens once, it’s bad. Two times, a coincidence he can’t ignore. He swears to god, if it ends up being three he’s gonna be beyond pissed and ready to get a Brute Squad together to find out who the hell is doing this.

No one fucks with the supernatural side of Seattle this much with getting their teeth kicked in.

Ophelia makes a frustrated, slightly disgusted noise as she gives Eddie the side-eye with a grimace. “Her name’s Dahlia, Dahlia Grimmold, and she’s…” She trails off and her gaze goes absent, looking at something only she could see in memories as she rests her cheek on an upturned hand. “You know how Dracula had his brides?”

Eddie can’t help how he snorts at that, which earns him another dirty look from the vamp. Mangus seems to be listening intently though, leaning on the edge of the bar with his hands clasped as he asks “Wasn’t that, um, people makin’ shit up though?”

Ophelia dismisses his question with a wave of her hand, her eyes softening when she speaks next. “She’s my bride,” she says almost wistfully, voice soft and hard to hear over the sounds of the next act tuning up. “The one I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. My flower of the night, who filled that infinite darkness with so much _wonder_ to witness that it became…” She looks downwards again, takes a shuddering breath. “It became one of the few things to make this state of being worthwhile.”

He flinches like he’s been burned when Ophelia continues. The Riggs family curse of Foot in Mouth rears its head yet again, damn whatever great-something ancestor pissed off the wrong mage to earn that one.

“…Shit, sorry. I assumed and, y’know, ass outta you and me and all that,” Eddie rambles a little scratching at the back of his neck as he avoids looking at Ophelia, only to bite his cheek when he suddenly has claws digging into his skin instead. This moon was gonna hit him like a freight train later, if he was already partially shifting this early.

Mangus eventually coughs awkwardly, breaking Eddie from his embarrassment and Ophelia from her memories. “I, uh, I know this is kinda outta left field but… Robin’s been gone too, and he’s kinda, y’know, in charge of shit and it doesn’t make sense he’s been out this long, so I mean-” He gets cut off as Eddie makes an X with his hands and says “Woah, woah, wait a sec. Who’s this Robin guy?”

Mangus blushes and mumbles something under his breath, snagging a deserted glass nearby to clean it with a cloth he pulls from thin air. Eddie gives Ophelia a quick questioning glance, and with a faint quirk of her mouth, a bounce of his eyebrows, they both turn to Mangus. Her hands fold under her chin delicately, while Eddie rests his chin on the top of a closed fist. “If it’s the same mess as Dahlia is involved in, I’d rather hear this now instead of later. You know how… _possessive_ we vampires can be.” Ophelia says in a voice like a silk-lined coffin, elegant and soft and cold even as she smiles sweet as a graveyard angel.

“I-he’s the-” Mangus looks fit to melt, cheeks going red and disappearing both glass and cloth with a nervous snap of his fingers. It ends up appearing and disappearing in front of him filled with various strange mixes of booze, as he tries to get his nerves under control. “Hellion’s leader, y’know, the- the current Baron. He said something… something about the old Pike’s Place underground before he left, but-but I haven’t heard since. None of his guys know either, besides some kinda…negotiation thing I guess.”

“…Oh _fuck,_ Lars had practice down there,” Eddie says, right as Ophelia says “Dahlia had practice down there.”

They end up staring at each other a bit wide-eyed with a dash of lurking suspicion, and Mangus buries his face in his hands with a noise of worried panic.

Whoever kidnapped their people will come to regret the decision, once they figure out all of this mess first.

*

Deep within the bowels of the Seattle underground, where humans walk above unaware of the wonders and horrors beneath their feet, the heart of the city _thrives._ Fueled by the lives lived and lost on its streets, the magic of everyday life sunk into every brick and stone, this is where the Coil hold court.

Lingering remnants of a time since past, clinging to the idea of an absent throne, the time of Man has taken hold and the title of Emperor no longer holds sway. In this day and age, it is the Barons, chosen protectors of the land and of the people, who hold true power.

Since their last failed attempt to resurrect the Empire, the fate of the White Winged Death still a closely guarded secret, the Coil have been forced further into the shadows. Forced to wait and bide their time, as they plan to take over these lands through the… _proper_ means.

Robin Eld, latest protector of Seattle, leader of the Hellions and known far and wide as the Fire Baron, hits the ground with the scrape of metal studs and leather, a meaty thud far more befitting a corpse than a man. The blood that trickles from his head is far from the first to stain this tainted ground, as strange and twisted sigils he can barely make out through the haze clouding his vision suddenly light up. There’s a low dark laugh that echoes off the stone walls, the scrape of talon-like nails as their owner draws closer, and his heart practically stops when he hears the crunch of glass and metal. Those hooves have been known to break skulls, split stone. His aviators are only the beginning, of whatever further hell this... this _beast_ will put him through, as they continue to wear down his defenses.

“I wonder what your subjects would say if they could see you now, oh mighty Fire Baron,” the demon all but purrs, when the sigils’ crackling red light finally washes over him. He towers in the space with hooves that shine like spilled blood, a leather mask that gleams almost obscenely, a gnarled body of roped muscle and exposed bone held together by thick dark stitching. Doviculus, leader of the Coil, is a crude interpretation of Frankenstein’s creature reflected through a mirror darkly, shaped by who- or what- the Titans had been. A nightmare lovingly given flesh.

The fact the demon’s voice is smooth as silk, the promise of a knife between the ribs, only makes matters worse.

“So fragile, so _human_ , it’s disgusting,” Doviculus scoffs, and with a snap of his fingers Robin is held up by the chains binding him. Just the right height for his face to be taken in hand, twisted this way and that like meat being inspected, sharp talons drawing further blood.  “Unable to protect yourself, a mutt, and a leech against a Nun. Weakest of the weak, it’s almost a waste to preserve all of you for our work. But…” The demon lets out a thoughtful hum, head turning in the direction of the cells nearby.

Inside the first is an agitated blond wolf turned copper by the reflecting light, stalking back and forth restlessly as far as the length of chain will allow them. A thick collar is snug against their neck, leather edged with thorns of metal, and whenever the chain is tugged too hard the collar tightens to the point of choking _._ A binding of blood and flesh, as the Coil are all too fond of.

The next has a woman with dark blue-black hair, corpse paint streaked and messy from two weeks without upkeep, and she’s too exhausted to claw at the bars anymore with ragged nails. There are lingering scratches on her bare arms and face from trying to fight back, dripping a dark tar-like substance that replaced a vampire’s blood after a few decades. With how still she lays in the corner of the cell, a shredded leather jacket used as a makeshift blanket, she could be confused for dead without the faint rise and fall of her chest.

“…it’s a hard enough time, getting what we can to fill our ranks without notice. Perhaps you’ll make a better War Father than a Baron, once the time comes.” Doviculus muses, turning back to the captured man with an unsettling grin. A snap of the fingers has another cell opened, a dismissive wave of the hand has Robin slammed into the back wall of it. Something inside him _cracks_ on impact, and a brief whimper of pain slips out from behind the gag before he can help it.

“Goodnight, Baron. Perhaps I’ll finally rip what I need out of you in the morning, and we can end this… dance of ours,” Doviculus purrs, and with another snap the cell clangs shut with a bang that feels like a death knell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, you can check out the rest of the zine [here!](https://www.dropbox.com/s/041uj23md9ghe5o/Br%C3%BCtal%20Legend_Zine.pdf?dl=0) Completely free to download, costs no money, and was honestly a labor of love by a bunch of fans.
> 
> Fun backstory stuff! Lars is the lead singer of Ironheade, who he's trying to find a bassist for. Dahlia is the unlucky bassist who tried to apply for the gig. Ophelia was turned in the 80s as part of the goth scene, which is also where she met Dahlia. Mangus is a nervous magic user who's magic reacts to his emotions, moving things around and reacting strangely. Eddie's reference to a Foot In Mouth curse? Real thing in-universe, magic users are spiteful mofos when crossed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kill Master gets dragged into the first Rebellion via the man in charge of said Rebellion being an absolute _idiot_ who needs to take better care of himself. Which totally, definitely happens, Riggnarok swears it does.
> 
> (It never does.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This did not appear in the zine, and is simply a bonus for this universe. This is where the Blood and Injury tag alongside the Eventual Romance one kicks in, because magic healing is kind of gross/straightforward and Kill Master has an interest in a handsome fool.

Damian L. ‘Kill Master’ Killam knew, the first time he met Riggnarok Riggs, that the other werewolf had trouble on his heels.

The fact that they met because Riggs had silver in his system, a chunk missing out of his shoulder too, didn’t help in the least.

Now, most of the time being a werewolf meant anything else got burned outta your system. Magic, geasses, curses, y’name it and it probably failed if it was specifically bound to you. The kinda stuff that was generation from generation though was an entirely different deal, with family curses being what they were. But Kill Master…

Well, he still had his magic after getting bitten, a one in a hundred chance, but it’s not like there was any real research about this kind of thing. Not enough magic for flashy tricks anymore though, reappearing and disappearing at will, or big pyrotechnics like the current Baron preferred. But healing, healing was something he could still do. Something he was handy at, truth be told, taking care of the supernatural folks modern medicine couldn’t do shit for. By normal law he probably counted as a back alley doctor, doing things for cash or booze or favors for later, but it worked fine by him.

It was people like Riggs he started the gig for anyways, so having a guy storm in cursing like a sailor as he clutched his arm wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was the sheer amount of damage that made Kill Master pause, because realistically a wolf’s healing rate should’ve wrapped up the whole thing by now. So he waved away his current on-duty student, and took on the case himself rather than delegating. Pressed a hand to the man’s chest, violet energy twining around his fingers like a friendly cat, and calmed him down enough to get a diagnostic running. Those were always a sharp green color, the color of cut grass and living things, and left a sharp taste like mint in the back of his throat.

Waving his hand over the man’s shoulder, there’s void spots. Blank spaces, where his magic can’t sense _anything_ , and he scowls. There’d been only a handful of things he couldn’t scope out, and since the man in front of him wasn’t dead that narrowed things down well enough. It’s also enough, to ask rather bluntly, “Who the fuck did you piss off, mate? Ain’t seen something this nasty since the last scrap with the Coil a few years back.”

Because the demons, the so-called Empire, loved fucking with shit like that. Coating their claws or weapons with whatever knee-capped the most people present, made folks suffer in agony before slaughtering them. He’d been part of the comb-through afterwards, seen the absolute carnage of the aftermath, and that’d been his first interaction with the current Baron too.

(He’d healed who he could, sniffed out survivors when it wasn’t enough. The Baron burned everything the Coil left, so it couldn’t be reused or brought back to life, by whatever methods those monstrosities used, and he ended up giving the man some grudging respect.)

The other man tenses at the mention of the Coil though, and Kill Master resists the urge to growl, or grab the man’s injured arm harshly. Wasn’t worth the effort of fixing the man up, if he was just gonna make the wound worse. “The _fuck_ did you do?” He demands, the previous hand used for calming the man down now bunched in the front of his black shirt, forcing the man to look at him eye to eye.

“I- Succoria was traveling, and we wouldn’t get another opportunity, so-“ The other wolf begins, voice a low rumble with a faint Southwestern twang that shouldn’t be so damn appealing, and this time Kill Master can’t help the growl that slips free. The angry pissed off one that usually meant someone was going to be tossed out on their ass for brawling in the waiting room, or for stirring up shit that should’ve been left at the door. There’d been whispers about another uprising, the Coil trying to claw their way back into things, and a thing or two about the guy trying to stomp this down with a handful of others behind him.

A few words about a werewolf with dark hair and some gray to it, tribal-like tattoos, and the name Riggnarok.

“Get yourself a fucking healer before getting’ into fights y’can’t handle, Riggnarok. I’ll fix this shit, but anything else y’keep outta here. This is fuckin’ neutral ground, an’ I will drag the Baron into this if the Coil show up.” Kill Master replies darkly, the threats coming back so easily when he’d thought them long abandoned, and they’re bitter on his tongue but have to be said anyways.

Riggnarok looks stunned at being recognized, a mumble of “How did you-”slips free, and Kill Master just laughs. A bark of laughter that’s rough and a bit grating on his own ears, and says with a flash of teeth “Tattoos. Stand out less, an’ disappear easier, mate. Can’t fight a war with a target on your back, now can you?” He slaps a hand that’s glowing green, clean antiseptic and healing green, on Riggnarok’s shoulder blade, and watches the man’s shoulders lose some tension as the silver fragments start pushing to the surface, flesh knitting together once they fall to the pseudo hospital bed with a soft patter like rain drops.

“Get cleaned up, an’ get the fuck out. Got a full waiting room, an’ I don’t need any more Coil run-ins.” Kill Master says once there’s just tanned flesh left behind, the ragged sleeve practically framing where the wound was. His fingers might trail over the spot for a moment, could be passed off as checking his work, and that’s what he tells himself. Riggnarok makes an affirmative noise, Kill Master briefly looking up and meeting brown eyes by accident, and he ends up slipping out of the room before Riggnarok does.

When he asks the on-duty student if he saw Riggnarok leave, he gets a yes. When he checks the room himself afterwards to get ready for another patient, he finds a twenty dollar bill slipped under one of the pillows, and can’t help but laugh. Ends up spending it on a thing of whiskey later, because he already knows this whole mess will leave him with a headache either way.

(How he ends up becoming the main healer for Riggnarok’s group of rebels after all of that, he’ll never fucking know.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Then Riggnarok comes to Kill Master one night begging for help, and Kill Master gets to yell at his friend/crush for hooking up with Succoria. Then he proceeds to help Riggnarok raise Eddie, because he's not an _asshole_ , and Riggnarok can barely take care of himself, how could he take care of a kid on top of that.
> 
> (It takes them until Eddie's five to realize 'Oh shit, we've been dating this entire time, what the _fuck-_ ')
> 
> Timeline wise, Fire Baron has been causing chaos for about two years as the new Baron, and Mangus is probably opening up the Bus in the next five years or so. Magic users have wonky aging, my dudes, so Mangus is older than Eddie, Lars, and Lita right off the bat.


End file.
